Yvonne Wren

BSc (Hons) Speech Pathology, MEd, PhD,
CertMRCSLT

Senior Research Speech and Language Therapist

Department: Bristol Speech and Language Therapy Research
Unit

About me

My research interest in children's speech development and
disorder has evolved following a clinical career working with
children and adults with various types of speech, language and
communication needs. I carried out my initial training at the
University of Manchester and started my career working for North
Mersey Community Trust before moving to Bristol to work with
both the United Bristol Healthcare Trust and North Bristol NHS
Trust in a variety of clinical and management roles.

Primary Area of interest

My main area of interest is in the field of persistent speech
disorder and more specifically, in developing a better
understanding of the causes and characteristics of children who
have this difficulty.

Currently, while many children present with various degrees of
delay in the development of their speech sound system in the early
years, some resolve spontaneously while others respond to
intervention and a third group continue to have ongoing problems
into their school years. There is a strong evidence base to show
that these children who have persistent problems are at higher risk
for poor life outcomes. If clinicians have the information and
tools to reliably distinguish between those children who will
spontaneously resolve in the pre-school years from those who are at
risk of persistent difficulties, intervention could be targeted at
those who are most at risk.

Fellowship programme

To further my research activity in this field, the National
Institute of Health Research has funded me to complete a five year
fellowship programme beginning in October 2012. Titled
'Understanding the causal pathway for persistent speech', this
fellowship will enable me to observe and identify patterns in two
large cohort studies: the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and
Children (ALSPAC) and the UK Cleft Collective. ALSPAC is a
longitudinal prospective population study which has collected data
on over 14000 families since the early 1990s. The UK Cleft
Collective is a new cohort study with core funding from the Healing
Foundation which will recruit families of children born with cleft
palate across the UK over the next five years. You can read more
about each of these studies at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/
and http://www.bristol.ac.uk/dental/cleft-collective/
.

Other interests

In addition to this work, I am also interested in the use of
technology in intervention for speech disorders and developed the
Phoneme Factory software series as part of a Department of
Health funded study. As well as selling widely across the UK, this
software is now being used in an international study funded by the
Australian Government. More information on this software is
available at http://www.speech-therapy.org.uk/phoneme-factory
.

My third main area of interest is in the development of speech
in children who are bilingual or multilingual. An increasing number
of children speak English as an additional language in the UK and
there is evidence to suggest that these children are both over- and
under-represented in terms of referrals to speech and language
therapy. More information is needed by both referrers and speech
and language therapists to better understand how speech develops in
children who are bilingual and how this differs from children who
are monolingual. Funding from The Underwood Trust was provided for
a systematic review of studies on speech acquisition in children
who are bilingual. More information on this can found on the
projects page at
http://www.speech-therapy.org.uk/bilingualism-and-its-effects-development-english-phonology
.

In addition to this current programme of research, previous
research activity (and funding) has included the Better
Communication Research Programme (DfE), Child Talk (NIHR Programme
Grant), Language Analysis Software study (NBT Seed Grant) and The
origins, outcomes and impact of persisting speech impairment (MRC).
More details on each of these can be found on the projects page. I
am also keen to encourage and promote the role of
clinician-researchers and to this end, have co-edited a book with
Dr Corinne Dobinson titled 'Creating practice-based evidence: A
guide for SLTs' (published by JR Press).